Ruthless Lions stick the boot in
Date published: 28 March 2011
Photo: Chris Sunderland
ON THE CHARGE . . . Lucas Onyango displays pace and power as he runs at the Swinton defence.
OLDHAM 24, SWINTON LIONS 68
Weakened Roughyeds find pacesetters too hot to handle
WITH the Lions already comfortably in front, Karl Ashall took it upon himself to bark out the orders while Ian Mort was lining up one of his 10 conversions.
Perhaps feeling that Swinton were ready to take their foot off the pedal, he amused fans of both persuasions (but mainly those in the blue corner) with his loud and passionate plea to team-mates.
"Be ruthless," rapped the Lions' replacement hooker. "It's 0-0." It was 40-12.
Nevertheless, the hungry Lions got the gist of Karl's command to roar in for five more tries on their way to inflicting Oldham's biggest league defeat since the ill-fated relegation season of 2006.
No excuses, but first a few relevant facts.
Swinton extended their winning run to six on the bounce in all competitions and established themselves as early pacesetters in the race for the Co-operative Championship One title, and automatic promotion.
Brimming over with confidence, they caught Roughyeds on the hop at a time when the squad was ravaged by injury, illness and mishap (Tom Wood-Hulme was hurt in a car crash) and was still smarting from a disappointing defeat at Workington seven days earlier.
A large portion of the squad's experience was swallowed up by the absence of key men like Neil Roden and Marcus St Hilaire, the end product of which was a debut at centre for Alistair Williams and the switch to stand-off half of Danny Whitmore – a hooker.
Whitmore did all that could have been expected of him, and more, but for him and Mick Diveney to have had even a ghost of a chance of matching Ian Watson and Martin Ainscough they required the pack in front of them to throw their weight around a bit and let the Lions forwards know they were in for a tough afternoon.
That didn't happen. The early signs were good, with Martin Roden leading from the front and big Ben Wood firing well down the left channel.
In the first 20 minutes Swinton didn't know what had hit them. Roughyeds were in charge – make no mistake about that – and were full value for their early tries by Wood and Diveney, the first after good work by Roden, the second on the back of Whitmore's last-tackle grubber into the Lions' in-goal area.
They even went close to scoring another try when Lucas Onyango crashed through two defenders at halfway and set off for the corner only to fall to a last-ditch Mort tackle close to the line.
Swinton were rocking. They were harassed into giving away the first four penalties and coming up with a lot of mistakes.
And when they tried to turn defence into attack by peppering Oldham's new-boy winger Shaun Robinson with a wide variety of Watson kicks they got no change at all. New kid on the block, maybe, but he played with the cool composure and confidence of a seasoned campaigner.
If Oldham can glean a positive from this 12-try mauling it has to be in how well the former Saddleworth Rangers wing shaped up in a baptism of fire against arguably the strongest team in the division following this year's recruitment of Mort, Ainscough, Mark Smith, Mike Morrison, Tommy Gallagher, Ashall and Carl Forber.
Stand-off Forber right now can't even get a look-in because of the blistering form of Ainscough – that's how strong Swinton are in the key half-back spots.
But back to Robinson. His performance was all the more pleasing because wily Watson, an old stager and as cute as they come, did his utmost to turn the new boy into a quivering wreck, but discovered instead that Robbo was made of much sterner stuff than that.
So where did it all start to go so terribly wrong for Oldham?
Swinton have been slow starters several times this season, and they were always going to shape better once they had got the measure of new-look Oldham and had discovered who, in the absence of Neil Roden, was going to be pulling the home side's strings.
But there was more to it than that. The pendulum began to swing Swinton's way once both benches became active in sending on replacements.
Swinton were more dominant forward once Dana Wilson – remember him at Oldham in Gary Mercer days? – and the ever-alert Ashall came on for Morrison and Smith.
Roughyeds, in contrast, lost much of their forward thrust and aggression with the departure of Roden, Jason Boults and Chris Clarke.
Wilson, Ashall and Phil Joseph were soon punching holes up the middle with Ainscough the chief beneficiary, and there was a sign of things to come when Gallagher scored a walk-in try on Watson's delayed pass.
After that, Oldham rarely saw the ball again for the 35 minutes or so either side of half-time.
John Clough saved the day with a try-saving tackle on Mort from behind, then Paul Noone and Mark Brocklehurst held up Dale Cunniffe over the Oldham line.
But the pressure was mounting and Oldham were powerless to prevent Wilson, Gavin Dodd and man-of-the-match Ashall all going in for tries before the interval, Wilson and Ashall up the middle and as a result of less-than-average defending.
For Roughyeds, half-time came as a shelter from the storm, but they were quickly under siege again at the start of the new half when Lions added five more tries in the space of 14 minutes.
Mort crossed after Sam Reay's break down the left, Dodd collected Joseph's crosskick to score, Lee Wingfield pounced on Watson's grubber into the in-goal, Richard Flooks added another (no fluke, this), then Ashall showed Oldham's weary defenders a clean pair of heels to capitalise on Rob Foxen's burst up the middle.
Foxen, a big winger, was to blast through the Roughyeds' somewhat flimsy midfield defence again to send in Ainscough for the Lions' 10th try.
Cunniffe and Mort went in for tries 11 and 12 during a free-scoring finale in which Oldham creditably battled back to restore a little bit of pride with two late tries by never-say-die Boults, the first engineered by Clough, the second by Roden.
